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In Sweden, around seventy car mechanics continue to confront one of the world's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action at the US carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has now reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla protest line starting from October 2023.

"It's a difficult time," states the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's cold winter weather arrives, it's likely to become even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday with a colleague, positioned near an electric vehicle garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, plus coffee & light meals.

However it's operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay and working terms representing their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, while 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he told an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups try to create conflict in a company."

The automaker came to Sweden back in 2014, and IF Metall has long sought to secure a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," states the union president, the organization's leader. "We formed the impression that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the union eventually found no alternative except to announce industrial action, beginning in late October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages and work terms frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review where he states he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to be rejected for a pay rise because he had the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. The company had approximately one hundred thirty technicians employed when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says currently approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has since replaced these with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, which is important to understand. However it violates all established norms. But Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a norm, they see that as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for comment in an email mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the company has granted only one media interview in the two years after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization better not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide them the best possible terms".

The executive rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has received backing from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed power points are not being connected to power networks in the country.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can power our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to envision an end to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how that would spread," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode